


heartbeat (flatlining)

by jamesstruttingpotter



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Gen, Self-Harm, fixing what the writers really fucked up on, seriously what the fuck show please stop abusing your canonically abused character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-21 09:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2463041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamesstruttingpotter/pseuds/jamesstruttingpotter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Later, much later, the team finds a way to piece itself back again. Forgiving Ward, it seems, comes before forgiving themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’m writing this because I absolutely hate the way the show is treating Ward. He’s an abuse victim, abused at the hands of himself and others, and yet the team continues to treat him as subhuman. Verbal abuse (in the case of Skye and Coulson) and physical abuse (Fitz) are rampant, and for some reason the show presents these instances as perfectly fine, and even justified. This is wrong. It sends the wrong message to its millions of viewers. It tells its audience that abuse victims are to be held responsible for being manipulated, and it perpetuates a cycle of abuse that is painted as too sacred to be broken.
> 
> This is my attempt to fix what the show has done wrong.

_"I'm showing you what it's like when you're deprived of oxygen."_

Grant still feels like he can't breathe, like his lungs have collapsed within his ribcage. His eyes are fixed on the white knuckles that encircle the bed frame under him; it takes a minute to realize that those bones belong to him, shifting under skin that is pulled taut and numb. 

His head throbs. John's voice has come back, ordering him to dispose of Fitz and Simmons, and Grant rethinks those five minutes for the thousandth time. What had he missed? Surely there had been a way to keep the two scientists safe without arousing John's suspicion. There was no place to hide on the Bus, but if he had included emergency gear in the infirmary they had dropped in - but no, that would have alerted John - if he had told Fitz -  _no,_  that would have been three bullets fired from John's gun - what was he missing, what was he stupid enough to overlook - there  _must_  have been a way - 

"Following orders," John's voice says, and Grant can see him leaning against the cell wall, smirk in place. "This is why you follow orders. You think you're smart enough to outwit HYDRA? You think you're special enough to do anything other than what I let you? I practically raised you, Grant. I took you away from that hellhole of a jail, from your family, from everything you hated. I  _made_  you. And you think you can toss me away?"

"I didn't!" Grant tells him, begs him, "John, you know I didn't - "

"I'm dead," John replies, and his smirk turns red with fury. "I'm dead, and you're alive; tell me, do you think that was part of my plan?"

Grant can feel it, the strike of boots against his stomach, and he throws a fist at the wall where John was just a second ago - except he wasn't, because he's  _dead_ , isn't he - and his knuckles burst against the stone. Knuckles that were white, weren't they, bloodless, but blood starbursts against the pale paper of his skin. 

The pain jolts him back into reality, makes the sound of John's laughter dissolve. He remembers the forest, how hunger pangs forced him to hunt. His brother had taught him too, taught him how the bite of cold water could buy him safety for a little while, maybe enough peace to sleep at night.

So he punches the wall again, gasping as frissons of heat race through his hand and into his arm. Here, then, is something to focus on, anything other than Fitz's face as he lowered the oxygen levels in the cell - the grinding of the humerus against rock, the crack of the skull across stone, the blow of the patella -

"That's enough."

Grant's palms are cut with crescents when he unfurls his fingers. May surveys him for a moment, eyes skimming along his arms as he holds them out, his spine as it curves inward, his head as it drops down. He looks up at her after a moment, blood stinging his eyes. A white box with a red cross is in her hand. She slides it to him using the small breach in the energy wall meant for his food trays.

"Clean yourself up," she orders. He doesn't move from his position. After a long silence, she pivots, exiting his chamber.

Ward doesn't dare look at the camera in the corner. Eventually, he crawls onto his mattress and closes his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah. Not happy with last week's episode. I'm not even going to address it.

He wakes with a throbbing headache. His eyes are gritty with lack of sleep, his limbs thrumming with the need to move. He stares at the ceiling for a second more, then swings out of bed.

Simmons is sitting in the chair on the other side of the wall, food tray in her lap. He almost slips off the edge of his mattress.

His eyes rove over her, checking for any potential weapons (fork on top of the napkin, glass cup, the tablet that controls his cell). She notices him doing it and holds still.

"Ward," she says, voice quiet, "I'm here to give you breakfast."

There's a beat of silence. "It's five thirty," he replies finally. "I receive food at nine."

Her smile is tight. "I'm the only person awake."

He knows from her face that she's telling the truth. He also knows that she's hoping it placates him.

She picks up the tablet and he flinches when she taps at it, only relaxing when he sees the familiar food tray slot open in the invisible wall between them. She puts the tablet down deliberately, takes the tray off her lap, then stands up. 

The slot is low to the ground on purpose: whoever is feeding him can leave the tray on the floor instead of handing it to him. Simmons crouches down, but waits for him to mirror her. When he does, she pushes the tray into his hands, only letting go when his fingers have wrapped around the plastic.

"You should eat it now before it gets cold," she tells him, looking expectant.

Feeling more awkward than he probably should, he sits on the floor and puts the tray down in front of him. She sits as well, only five feet away.

He looks down at the food and waits for her to talk. The eggs are real, he notes, with salt and pepper sprinkled over them. 

"Metal fork?" he says when she gives no indication of talking.

"I want to trust you," she replies, and he fingers the tines.

"I've been at HYDRA," she continues, almost conversationally. A dull sort of panic spreads through his chest. 

"Doing what?"

"Things." Her tone is vague and that calms him, but Simmons has never quite known what it takes to lie and so he senses the current under her words. She's driving toward a point. He thinks he knows what it is. He lets her talk anyway.

"While I was there, I tried to find out what I could. I found out that... that SHIELD agents, our agents, were complying with HYDRA for seemingly no reason. I thought maybe they were undercover like me, but then I watched Agent 54 shoot Kim - do you remember Kim? Her office had been on the third floor of the Hub - and there was nothing, no emotional reaction. Almost like 54 was just watching, not acting. And then I realized - I found out, really, that - "

"That HYDRA uses brainwashing." Ward pushes the food away from him. Simmons watches the tray move, eyes flitting from the plastic to his face. He almost doesn't continue, but then he remembers her expression as the med bay dropped, the whiteness of her fingers as they pressed against the glass window. He remembers that he is bankrupt with debt. "They didn't use it on me."

Her shoulders only drop a fraction of an inch, and he thinks maybe she's found her poker face after all. "I see."

But she doesn't get up from the floor, doesn't turn the wall between them opaque and soundproof. In fact, she doesn't do anything but fiddle with the ends of her newly-short hair.

"I suppose," she says haltingly, "you've been taken care of down here."

He also remembers then that she used to watch him before, remembers that when some woman had come down here to take away the button he'd used to cut himself open she'd told Coulson through her walkie-talkie that "Jemma had been right." He looks away as well.

"Yes. I eat and sleep. I talk to Skye. I talked to - " His throat closes up.

"Fitz." She looks at him then, face still carefully blank. "I heard."

He almost wants to laugh. "I'm sure that story is making its rounds."

Something in her voice falters. "Fitz is - he's - "

"Not Fitz. Yeah, I know. I know I did that." Fitz is dead, Ward thinks. Fitz is gone.

He thinks of Buddy.

"Were you giving us a way out?" Simmons asks, and it's so abrupt that his eyes fly to hers without conscious thought. She's still staring at him, fingers barely shaking. 

"Would you believe me if I said yes?" he replies.  _Fitz didn't_.

She gets up and brushes off her pants. "Like I said - " she picks up the tablet and starts to walk away - "I want to trust you."

Ward feels the panic rise up again in his chest, tumultuous and clamorous, and his gaze falls to the fork, lying abandoned on his full plate.

But then she pauses, right at the top of the stairs, and looks back. "Finish your food, please. I'll be back later to get the tray."

When the door closes behind her, he picks up the fork and stares at it. Then, slowly, he begins to eat his breakfast.


End file.
